In a move that is sure to go down in adorable bear history, the BBC has named a female panda named Sweetie one of its female Faces of the Year. 2011 was either lacking severely in girlchievements or a banner year for lady pandas. So what was Sweetie's glorious achievement that elevated her, a bear, over that of all female humans who did stuff?

She got off of an airplane in Scotland, to great fanfare. That's it. Hooray for Sweetie the panda, woman face of the year.

Not only is a bear deemed to appropriately fit the "woman" category, the rest of the list will leave people who were hoping for a progressive set of female movers and shakers disappointed. Sure, it includes Michele Bachmann, who, for all of her frothing, hateful votemongering, is at least a politician, and Dilma Rousseff, the first female President of Brazil. But the list also includes Charlene Wittstock, a woman famous for almost not marrying a prince, a very wealthy Spanish duchess who married a younger man, and Pippa Middleton, a woman famous for being related to a woman who married a prince. We've also got two sexual assault victims on the list— Eman al-Obeidi, the Libyan woman who was dragged away from reporters while trying to tell them she'd been raped by Gaddafi forces, and Nafissatou Diallo, the woman who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her in his $12 zillion per night hotel room. And then there's the US Marine who successfully asked Justin Timberlake to go to a dance with her.

Advertisement

All in all, more than half of the BBC's "Faces of the Year: Women" are rape victims, princesses and thereabouts, or bears.